


out of the corner of my eye

by Sixthlight



Series: A Few Years Later [4]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: 5+1 Things, Future Fic, M/M, Spoilers for Foxglove Summer, past canonical Peter/Beverley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 10:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3131711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five people who wondered about Peter and Nightingale, and one person who knew all along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	out of the corner of my eye

**Author's Note:**

> This story falls before/during/after [Good Grammar](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2809814) (or one of its alternates, if you prefer!)

**1\. Miriam**

The day had started early for Miriam, though not as early as for some. Apart from her people, the ones who got called first to the murder scenes, Peter Grant had been there before she had. Sahra Guleed had decided there was something funny and called him in before it had even worked its way up to Miriam - maybe a slight overstep, but Sahra dealt with the Folly often enough, and wouldn't have done it if she wasn't confident it was necessary. By the time Peter's governor showed up, Miriam was more than ready for coffee and some more explanations - Peter had been a bit frantic and not very clear. Nightingale was happy to come along. The only thing nearby was a Starbucks, but any port in a storm, so Miriam headed for it. She wondered if Nightingale had ever entered one. Surely at some point; he might be out of his time but he still lived in modern London.

She ordered a double espresso, because she was going to need to be seriously caffeinated for this one, she could tell. Nightingale frowned critically at the menu.

“Tall is small, grande is medium -” she began to mutter quietly.

“Mmmm, yes,” he interrupted, then smiled at the cashier. “Can I have a tall Americano and a venti moccachino with an extra shot of espresso, skim milk? And a cheese Danish.”

“Sure,” said the woman behind the counter. “Name?”

“Thomas.”

Miriam was still trying not to gape when their drinks were ready. “Doesn’t sound like your sort of drink.”

“It’s not for me,” Nightingale said absently, expertly juggling the two coffees, the bag with the danish pastry, and his cane, which eventually went under one arm as he sipped at the Americano. By mutual agreement they went to sit in one of the vans; Peter joined them, still looking like death warmed over. He might well have been there most of the night – Miriam hadn’t been rustled out of her own bed until four am.  

“It’s not going to get anyone else – for the moment,” he said to Nightingale, “but I’d feel better if you went over it.”

“Once we’ve ascertained what our next steps are, certainly,” said Nightingale, holding out the bag with the danish and the ridiculous frothy drink that wasn’t for him but was, apparently, for his sergeant. “Here.”

Peter brightened at the sight of sustenance, took a sip of the drink, having tasted it beamed at Nightingale in utter delight, and then downed approximately a third of it at once. Miriam wondered how he wasn’t scalding his mouth. “ _Thank you_ , sir.” He didn’t say anything for the next two minutes, too busy eating and drinking more coffee.

Now, making sure your subordinates were fed and watered was pretty basic policing; Miriam had bought Peter tea and coffee and food herself a time or two, when he’d been helping out on one of her shouts. It was the easy way Nightingale had rattled off the order that was weird, now. She happened to know from time spent working together that Peter tended to make a production out of drinking black coffee and lots of it; any taste for that sort of frothy sweet drink was kept quietly undercover. Peter spent so much time being obvious, it was easy to forget there was more to him than that.

“So what _are_ our next steps?” she asked Nightingale, to cover her confusion. “And I just want what I need to know; I’m not bothered about exactly what or who is doing it.”

“Well,” said Nightingale, and began to talk, but the twitch of his lips – she wouldn’t quite call it a smile – in Peter’s direction was almost - fond.

Then again, Miriam decided, Peter had been standing beside or behind or in front of Nightingale as the situation demanded for basically his entire career as a sworn police officer, and before that Nightingale had been a department of one for decades, as creepy as that was to contemplate. And they even lived in their nick, both of them and that even creepier housekeeper. Of course they paid attention to each other and their habits; they couldn’t not.

But it was still weird. There was only one person she’d bother being able to order for like that, and she was married to her.

But – nah. Peter had had girlfriends, she was pretty sure, not that that meant he was straight, but she didn’t see him being able to keep it quiet if he was shagging his boss. Or Nightingale getting into that sort of thing with his subordinate, much less his _apprentice_ , as he called it. It wasn’t as if these things didn’t happen, but those two – no. Although apparently Peter wasn’t an apprentice anymore; Miriam had no idea what the graduation requirements were for wizarding school and wasn’t interested in the details, but he’d said something of the sort recently. Something about a staff.

It was just – weird. That was all. 

 

**2\. Beverley Brook**

It would be easy for Beverley to think about Peter as the one that got away, but she didn’t – or not very often. The funny thing was, the end of it had been visible almost from the start. She'd liked Peter, and he’d liked her right back, as well as wanted her in the _worst_ way – but when the boy you liked didn’t even bother to send you a message for _nine whole months_ …at the time, she’d just put it down to Peter’s short attention span. Then the first thing he’d done when he’d got her alone again was ask about Lesley’s face, like that was _important_. Well, okay, it had been important, more important than Peter or Beverley or anyone else had realised until afterwards, but still. Beverley should have known then, but she’d let it go.  
  
Then there had been that whole mess in Herefordshire, and Peter had tried to bargain himself off to the fae Queen – like the beautiful idiot he was – and she’d pulled his arse out of the fire, right enough, big damn hero, her. She hadn’t realised at the time that what she’d told the Queen was truer than she liked to think. Peter wasn’t free to bargain himself away, to the Queen…or to anyone else. Like goddesses of not-so-minor rivers in South London.  
  
She’d heard the nickname for the first time a few months later. _Nightingale’s starling_. A thing could be more than one thing at the same time, she’d told Peter once, and it was true, but it couldn’t _belong_ to more than one thing at the same time. The Thames was her mother’s river, and the Old Man’s, but she was Mama Thames’ daughter, and Mama Thames’ alone. And Peter was Nightingale’s starling, and there they were. It had taken him a few months to catch up with it, of course. Peter always had been good at ignoring what he really didn’t want to be true, like Lesley’s anger, or his own limits. And Beverley hadn’t pushed it – he was nice, and funny, and he really did like her, and the sex was _great_ , so why bother worrying about when it was going to end?  
  
It had been hideously awkward for a while after, and then just normally awkward, and by this point it was fine, good even; they caught up sometimes for coffee or a drink, or Peter would call her for help on a case, or they’d run into each other at the goblin market or elsewhere, and Beverley would smile when she saw him, and he’d smile back. In the ranks of ex-boyfriends, as far as Beverley was concerned, he was top-notch, was her Peter, even if he wasn’t _her_ Peter. (There’d been that time when she was upstream, with one of Father Thames’ grandsons, and she was _still_ avoiding him at the Court every spring the better part of ten years later. It hadn’t even been _bad_ , just – no.)

She’d met Peter just last week, in fact. Part friendship, part business; Abigail Kamara had sworn the oath and joined the Folly that summer, but she’d heard that they were thinking of taking other apprentices. Her mother could have called Peter to her court and demanded answers, but this was much easier. Also she’d conned Nicky into babysitting for once, and she could count the number of times _that_ had happened on the fingers of one hand.

The goblin market was being held that week, in the inner courtyard of an old block of terraced houses in Pimlico – Peter rambled about the architectural details for a full five minutes at a stray comment from her – and they met at the café there. It was August, and the sky was blue and hazy-hot; Beverley had an iced espresso and Peter had a beer, one of Oberon’s weird microbrew recommendations. They chatted about their families, Olivia’s teething and Abigail’s reactions to the Folly.

“She’s getting on with Molly really well,” Peter said. “Actually it’s kind of creeping me out.”

Beverley punched him in the arm, gently. “I did tell you Molly has friends.”

“Yeah, but,” Peter said. “Hey, how was Herefordshire? He started watching Doctor Who yet?”

“I didn’t ask,” Beverley told him, “but probably,” and she told him about Lilly and Corve and Tefeidiad and Lugg, the youngest. Peter had wanted kids, she knew that. He should really be getting a move on with it. Maybe their good deed in the countryside was as close as he was going to get, but she didn’t say that, because she wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it, and Peter – well, he’d always been so good at those hopeful lies to himself.

“Is it true, then?” she said finally. “That Abigail’s not the only apprentice you’re taking on?”

Peter cocked an eyebrow at her. “Maybe. Is this you asking, or your mum?”

She shrugged. “Bit of both. First it was just the Nightingale, for as long as Mum’s been around. Then there was you. And Abigail, everyone expected that one. If it’s getting beyond that…it means the Folly’s coming _back_ , Peter. I think some of us aren’t sure we want that.”

Peter lifted his chin, stubborn as always. “The Folly, the way it was before Ettersberg – that’s not what _we_ want, either. But we’re run off our feet, Bev, there need to be more of us.”

“And you’ve all got to be wizards.”

He sipped his beer and grinned that cheeky grin. “Not _necessarily_ – send us Brent when she gets old enough, I think I could talk Nightingale into taking her on. Or Nicky; she’s not too old for Hendon.”

Beverley made a horrified face. “Bite your tongue.”

Peter shrugged. “You want in, _really_ in, you can have in. You just have to ask.”

Beverley had to admit that he had a point, maybe…but there was no chance of any of her sisters swearing the Folly’s oath, so. Although she wouldn’t put it past Peter to find a way around that, the cunning man that he was. Some of her sisters’ _children_ , perhaps. Terrifying thought.

“I wonder what Ty would have to say about that,” she said sweetly, at exactly the right moment for him to choke on his beer. “But it’s true, then.”

“We’ve not made any decisions yet,” Peter said. “And I can tell you right now we’re going to have to ask more people than say yes, so maybe not any time soon, regardless.”

Which was as good as a yes. “You’ll bring them by to meet Mum, once they’re sworn in.”

Peter raised his beer to her, a casual salute of sorts. “Not up to me. But I’ll remind Nightingale.” He glanced towards the entrance, over her shoulder.

“What, is he _here_?” Beverley was startled; that didn’t happen so often.

Peter nodded. “He’s supposed to meet me in a bit; there were some books at one of the stalls…I thought they might be worth picking up for the Folly, but I wanted a second opinion. I’d get Postmartin from Oxford if I could, but he’s moving pretty slowly these days.”

Beverley scowled. “Peter, you can’t just confiscate stuff, this is the _market -_ ”

“What? No!” he said, blinking in surprise. “When I say pick up, I mean _buy_. Because they’re _for sale_. Unless you think they’ll just refuse to sell them to the Isaacs – in which case is there any chance you’d -”

“Nah, they’ll sell to you.” Beverley relaxed back into her chair. “Still going to stir people up, having the Nightingale down here.”

“Yeah, well, needs must. Not like they’re in a regular bookstore and I can just come back for them another day. Besides – if he only ever shows up in an emergency everyone’ll think it’s an emergency every time he does show up.”

Peter might live in the Nightingale’s house, but Beverley wasn’t so sure everyone else was ever going to get used to him like that. But let Peter figure that out for himself.

They chatted a while longer, and then it was time for Beverley to go – the texts from Nicky were getting increasingly more frantic, hah, and her husband wouldn’t be home for a while yet. They’d both finished their drinks, anyhow. As she got up, she saw Peter smiling at her, but not at her, she realised – at someone behind her, a pleased look of recognition. He hadn’t smiled at her like that since – well, since they’d been together, and that was years gone now. She turned, but saw no-one she recognised, except the Nightingale, suit and cane and all, making his way towards them. The occasional head turned, and there were some mutters, but no-one was outright panicking. Maybe Peter had a point.

“Well, here he is,” Peter said, standing himself. “Great to see you, Bev.”

“And you, always,” she told him, and they exchanged a hug and a kiss on the cheek. But when he let go, it was the Nightingale he smiled at, and even as she said hi-and-how-are-you and made her exit, she wondered – Nightingale’s starling. Like that? Really? Or – was it a trick of the light, her own imagination? Because the Nightingale was, well, the Nightingale, and he’d been Peter’s master these ten years. She didn’t put much stock in the age thing – look at half her own cousins upstream, or Effra’s Oberon, come to that – but that he’d been Peter’s master, now. That made it hard to see.  

Peter might be good at tricking himself, but she’d always been able to get the truth out of him one way or another. Maybe this was another thing he was choosing not to see, or…maybe not.

Beverley decided that, at some point – when she got around to it, and the moment was right – she was going to have to find out.

 

**3\. Abigail**

Abigail had been visiting the Folly for years by the time she finally moved in, but only the more public parts – the atrium and the tech cave and once or twice the dining room and one of the libraries – so it still took some getting used to, it being her _home_ now. Or at least her home for the next however many years. She’d asked and apparently you didn’t _have_ to live there once you were finished being an apprentice, but Peter still did.

She’d asked him why, after she took the oath, and he’d just shrugged. “You have any idea what it would cost me to rent somewhere close enough to be on call? We don’t get hazard pay for all the magic stuff, you know. We probably _should_ , but we don’t.”

“But what if you wanted to, like, get married and have kids and stuff?” She’d thought for a while maybe he’d marry Beverley Brook, but it had never happened and it made Peter grumpy when people asked why. Not with Beverley, they were still mates as far as Abigail knew, but at people thinking it was up for discussion, especially when those people were Beverley’s sisters.

Peter frowned at her. “I did tell you – this is a long-term thing; you’re not going to have much time for a social life, and forget getting married or having kids, at least until you’re done training, or close to it. No reason you can’t afterwards, though. I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

She’d thrown a cushion at him. “I’m _not_ , oh my god, Peter, I don’t want to get married! I just thought – like, isn’t it weird, living with Nightingale? I mean, he’s two hundred or something.”

“He is not,” Peter said. They were in the tech cave, on the couch. “Anyway, he’s not even the oldest person you know by a long shot. And it’s fine, this place is enormous, you’re not even going to notice us if you don’t want to outside of work.”

“Except for meals,” she pointed out. “That I have to _dress_ for. And if I want to use the internet or watch the telly at all. And we’re cops, work is all we do.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “No-one _made_ you become an apprentice, Abigail.”

And he was right, sort of. Nightingale – _her_ governor now, too, like he was Peter’s and had been Lesley May’s – was perfectly pleasant to live with. She had an entire floor to herself, and a shared bathroom she didn’t have to share with anyone, for the first time in her life. At least for the first while, until the other apprentices came along, first Annie then Mal then Matt, and even that wasn’t so bad.

But it was still a bit weird sometimes, living in the same space as Nightingale, her boss, running into him when she was getting a snack in the middle of the night or staggering back from a long day or mucking around on her laptop in the tech cave. And the others felt the same way, they’d talked about it. Not so weird it was a thing, just – weird, occasionally, that sort of forced intimacy, even in a space as big as the Folly. Molly was even weirder, but it was dead obvious she was thrilled to have other women in the house again, in her own weird way. Mal and Annie were warming up to her just fine, and Abigail had known her so long she was barely creepy at all. Although she did wish she could talk. Interpreting all the stares and shrugs and hand-gestures was hard. She wondered if anyone had ever offered to teach her sign language. She wondered if Molly would want to learn.

What was weirder was the way Peter obviously didn’t mind Nightingale at all; she could see why he hadn’t been keen to move out. He got his laundry done and his meals made for him, and he and Nightingale actually _hung out_ when they weren’t working, not all the time but often enough. She kept walking into the tech cave or the library or the reading room and finding them both in there, just – doing stuff. Normal stuff. In some ways she felt like she just existed in the same space as them, outside work. She still went out to see her mates from probationary training or, yeah, go on dates, or just be away from the Folly for a little while. They were her colleagues but they were also her bosses and they’d known her since she was thirteen, and it was – it took some getting used to.

It wasn’t like Peter and Nightingale never went out or anything, more often individually than together, but they seemed pretty happy with each other’s company. The phrase “work husbands” had never been more appropriate, if you asked Abigail. Not that anyone had.  

There was one day, particularly, when she walked into the reading room – it was the weekend, she thought, or maybe it had been a bank holiday? – and they’d been sitting in there. The week or the month before, she and Matt and Annie had dragged some of the big green armchairs closer together, the better for talking and throwing balled up bits of paper at each other. Nightingale was in one, doing the _Telegraph_ crossword – that meant he was thinking something over. Peter was in another, but sitting the wrong way, legs over one arm of the chair, body propped into the corner, reading a book. Nightingale was in crisply-pressed trousers and a pale blue shirt, collar open, which was his equivalent of a t-shirt and jeans. Must have been a weekend, then. Peter _was_ in jeans, but the nice dark-wash kind, and a polo shirt – t-shirts had largely absented themselves from his everyday wardrobe, even off-duty, and Abigail was beginning to guess why. Unlike Nightingale, he was in socks but not shoes. His chair was close enough to Nightingale’s that his feet, dangling over the arm of his own chair, were propped on the arm of Nightingale’s. Nightingale was twirling a pencil in his fingers as he contemplated his next move with the crossword, and it brushed Peter’s sock-clad foot. Peter prodded Nightingale’s hand with his foot, and Nightingale poked back with the pencil, but stopped twirling. Neither of them said anything, or looked up from what they were doing.

It was _so_ weirdly domestic that Abigail stared for a few seconds, then turned around and walked out again, which meant she almost walked straight into Mal going the other way.

“Something wrong?” asked Mal. Abigail had to look up at her; she was inconveniently tall, especially for an Asian girl.

“You don’t want to go in there, it’s weird,” Abigail told her.

Mal looked perplexed, poked her head in, then looked back at Abigail. “What’s weird about it?”

And maybe it looked normal if you’d just moved in here and been introduced to DCI Nightingale and DS Grant and thought that was just how they were, but it didn’t to Abigail. Either Peter and Nightingale were taking the idea of heterosexual life partners to an entirely new level, or the work husbands thing was less of a joke than she’d thought. Abigail knew absolutely nothing about Nightingale’s sex life and never ever wanted to, and _way_ too much about Peter’s, thank you, Beverley Brook and five cosmopolitans. Abigail had got so drunk trying to forget about that she actually didn’t remember the rest of that evening. She hadn’t been able to look at rivers (or Rivers, come to that) the same way for _months_.

“ _Nothing_ around here is normal, we’re the magic cops,” she told Mal, and went off to find somewhere to be that wasn’t going to do her head in. 

 

**4\. Sahra**

Sahra would never admit it, but she did take a kind of schadenfreude-like pleasure in rousting out her fellow officers on Christmas Day. If only because it happened to _her_ for _her_ family holidays all the time, not to mention what felt like every time she sat down to eat during Ramadan. Almost none of them were ever really sorry about it, either. She would have avoided calling in the Folly if at all possible, but at least she didn’t have to call Grant in right away now he and Nightingale finally had a few PCs to dump some things onto. She didn’t begrudge Grant his Christmas. His governor was neither here nor there, but he wouldn’t be called in at this stage anyway. It was just your basic was-this-murder-done-with-magic check, what Grant called an IVA except he’d never explained what that was supposed to stand for. She was pretty sure she knew the answer anyway, once one of her DCs had shown her around their new crime scene. No-one was chopped into that many pieces, without blood but _still warm_ , ugh, without some weird bollocks going down. But best to get it checked out.

She started with Choudhury, on the grounds that she’d probably be the least likely to mind, but apparently PC Choudhury had taken the opportunity to visit her family in Manchester. PC Blake was with his in Cardiff, and Sterling in Glasgow – Sahra was beginning to mutter profanities about the Folly’s strange attraction for people who weren’t from London – and PC Kamara, born and raised in Kentish Town, wasn’t answering her phone. Sahra left three increasingly terse voicemails before sighing and dialling Grant’s number.

For a wonder, he picked up pretty quickly. By that point it was four o’clock in the afternoon, the winter daylight was almost gone, and she could hear the noise of a party in the background. Not the roar of music, not that kind of party, but the bustle of people talking and glasses and cutlery clinking. The murder was in one of those glass-walled, box-shaped apartments that lined the Thames. Sahra was in the living room, looking out at the slow black roil of the river, the weak and fading sunlight glinting. No snow, this year, not like the Christmas she’d first met Grant; just rain and wind and gloom. Ah, England.

“Inspector Guleed," Grant said by way of greeting. It still gave Sahra a little thrill, hearing that. "Please tell me this is just a courtesy call to wish me Merry Christmas.” 

“Get some of your constables to stay in the city,” Sahra retorted. “I need one of you down on Grosvenor Road. There’s a body.”

“This better fucking not be occult graffiti again,” Grant shot back. “And one of our constables _is_ in the city. I’m looking right at her. Mind you, she’s on her third glass of wine, so I can’t say how much use she’s going to be, but she’s here.”

“Then tell her to answer her phone,” said Sahra; she could hear the noise receding. Grant must be leaving the room. “Wait, why’s Kamara at your family Christmas?”

“She’s my cousin, remember?” The noise vanished entirely, with the click of a shutting door. “But seriously, why didn’t you call her? This is what I have minions _for._ ”

“I did. Three times.”

The noise of the door opening, the sounds of a party washing back in; on her end, Sahra waved off one of the forensics techs. It could wait until she was done with this. Grant’s voice came distantly. “Hey, Abigail, check your damn phone!”

The door shut again. “Dead battery, I think. Look, why d’you think this is one of ours?”

Sahra described the scene briefly; Grant sighed. “Yeah – I take your point. We’ll be down as soon as we can. Did it _have_ to be during my family Christmas party, though?” The door clicked open again, then shut; there was a quiet murmur, but Sahra couldn’t make out what the other person was saying to Grant.

Sahra rolled her eyes, not that Grant could see it. “I was out of other people to call – unless you wanted me to go straight to your governor? Bet he’d appreciate having _his_ Christmas interrupted even less than you are.”

“Too late,” Grant said, sounding amused – and what was that supposed to mean? “What’s the address?”

Sahra gave it to him, then did a quick goodbye and hung up to talk to the forensics guy – lady, actually. Magic or not, there was police work to be done.

Grant surprised her by arriving in under half an hour – Christmas Day traffic, most likely – and arriving in his governor’s silver Jag; she heard one of the PCs commenting on it admiringly before she knew Grant was there. He surprised her even more when _we_ turned out to mean not only him and Kamara – apparently not on her third glass of wine after all – _and_ DCI Nightingale.

“This sounded like something I should see myself,” said Nightingale, once the three of them had been kitted out in the forensics suits. “In the bedroom, we were told?”

Sahra pointed them in. They spent about five minutes in there, doing their thing, whatever that was; Sahra was more interested in the results than the specifics, plus when you’d done your time under Seawoll you learned to not display too much of an interest in the weirder side of the Met. Between Covent Garden and all that business with Lesley May, Seawoll could barely stand the sight of them, and he wasn’t keen on anyone who could.

Only Nightingale and Grant came out.

“Abigail’s just in the bathroom,” Grant said by way of explanation. “She hasn’t had much in the way of bodies yet.” On top of a big meal and alcohol, too; Sahra felt nauseous in sympathy and she didn’t even drink the stuff. “But definitely us.”

“Any idea what caused…that?” she asked them.

“None whatsoever,” said Nightingale, almost cheerfully. He creeped her out sometimes. He’d never been anything but scrupulously polite but some people you were just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Sahra had never got over the feeling it might with him. “Some research will be required.”

“You don’t have a murder weapon?” asked Grant.

“Are you joking? We don’t even have a cause of death, apart from the obvious. What do you lot need to do around here?”

Kamara joined them at this point, still a bit pale and refastening the hood of her noddy suit. Hopefully the forensics people weren’t going to be _too_ pissed with her. “Want me to check the place for _vestigia_?”

Whatever that was. Sahra was pretty sure it was the "V" in "IVA", but that was as far as it went. 

Nightingale shook his head. “I’ll do that. You should go through the victim’s personal effects, and Peter can consult with Inspector Guleed on what background they already have, if that’s all right.” He looked to Sahra; she nodded. Polite, but…something was _off_ about him, that was all.

She ended up dumping Grant on Carey for what they already knew, so she could double-check on the forensics and the family liaisons. That was the worst job, on Christmas Day. By the time she was done with that Grant and Nightingale were clearing out; Kamara was still going through the victim’s things.

“We have some research to do,” Nightingale told her. “Abigail is still making her survey. Would you like her seconded to you for the duration, or…?”

Sahra thought about it. “Nah – not yet. We can talk when we need to. Just make sure she’s answering her phone from here on, yeah?”

Grant grinned sharply. “She will be.”

“I hope you got some of the day at least,” said Nightingale politely, and hah, there it was. Grant gave her a strained and slightly embarrassed look, the _sorry-about-my-white-person_ one.

“Not really a big deal for me,” Sahra told him patiently; he surprised her by looking genuinely embarrassed.

“Oh – my apologies, I didn’t mean to assume.”

Huh. Well, that was better than nothing. And the forensics suits did cover her hijab, if he needed the visual cue. “No problem. Sorry you got dragged out; I was just expecting one of you.”

Nightingale shrugged. “Oh, not at all – Abigail had driven over with us, so she’d have had to find her own way home, and it didn’t seem very charitable to send Peter and her off to investigate this and stay at the party myself.”

That was…really fucking confusing, actually. “You were all at the same Christmas party?” She might not do the Christmas thing herself but she _did_ have a pretty good idea of who you invited to what, and inviting your governor to your family Christmas dinner was – not what you did. And Grant had _definitely_ said it was his family thing.

“Can’t leave him all by himself at the Folly,” Grant said easily. “Besides, it was a good time for us to get out – Mum was just gearing up for her annual row with her sister.” He and Nightingale exchanged a rueful look that indicated they both knew what this meant, and that was just – Sahra didn’t even know what to say. This happened _regularly_? She’d known the Folly was a close-knit unit – well, it had to be, right, with just Grant and Nightingale for so long – but this was something else.

“Right,” she said aloud. “I’ll let you two get away, then.”

They smiled and did the we’ll-call-you-when-we-find-something-don’t-break-our-constable dance, and left. Sahra frowned after them for a good minute before someone interrupted her.

Kamara didn’t finish her search for whatever it was she expected to find among the victim’s book collection and other possessions for another hour or so; when she was done, Sahra got someone who was heading back to Belgravia to drop her off at the Folly. It was Christmas, after all.

“I gotta ask, though,” she said as Kamara was leaving, “what was your _governor_ doing at _Christmas dinner_?”

Kamara rolled her eyes. “Don’t ask _me_. Peter – sorry, Sergeant Grant – talked him into coming a few years back and now it’s just sort of…a thing. We’ve got a pretty big family, one more doesn’t make much of a difference. I mean, not that he doesn’t stick out, don’t get me wrong, but no-one notices anymore.”

“But he’s your _governor_ ,” Sahra said. “What do your family think?”

“Actually,” Kamara said, thoughtfully, “I think about half of them know he works with Peter and the other half know that but think they’re shagging on the quiet, but no-one wants to ask because Peter’s mum yelled the first time someone did and Peter’s mum is _terrifying_.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that – awkward?”

Kamara shrugged. “Like he said – otherwise it’d just be Nightingale and Molly by themselves for Christmas and Peter’s still working on getting Molly along. And believe me, if he ever makes it happen, _that’s_ going to be awkward.”

Sahra still wasn’t really sure who this Molly person the Folly lot all talked about _was_ , except civilian staff of some sort, but what she’d heard sounded like awkward wouldn’t be the half of it. Inviting your governor to the family Christmas – what _was_ Grant going to do next? Personally she’d die of mortification if anyone thought she had something going on with Stephanopoulos, but apparently Grant didn’t care. Which was dangerous; the DPS must have a file an inch thick with his name on it. Although the way the Folly floated independently of the rest of the Met, it would be hard to make a fuss of, unless someone _really_ had it in for them. She made a note to make sure this didn’t come to Seawoll’s ears…though it would make _great_ blackmail material if she ever needed a professional favour out of Grant or Nightingale. Assuming they saw it that way, which maybe they didn’t, the way Kamara talked about it.

“Don’t take it the wrong way,” she said aloud, “but your nick is weird, you know that?”

Kamara grinned. “That’s the way we like it.”  

 

**5\. Abdul**

In a medical capacity, Abdul saw Thomas regularly for his MRI scan. His brain still looked clear enough, but Abdul wasn’t taking chances. Other than that he’d managed to keep out of hospital for some years now, which was the way Abdul preferred it. The last time had been bad enough. There had been a couple of brushes for Peter, but he was a healthy young man and bounced back readily enough. Thomas might have the grace of a forty-year-old body but that old gunshot wound left him prone to lung infections, and you simply weren’t as resilient at forty as you were in your twenties or early thirties, even if it was several steps up from being in a rest home or just dead.

So he was quite cross when Thomas landed himself in there with a fractured tibia _and_ fibula; that sort of major bone breakage was no joke. To his surprise, Thomas looked thoroughly chastened – as well as pale – before he’d even launched in on him.

“Abdul, _please,_ ” he said. “I’ve already heard it all from Peter.”

“Good,” Abdul told him. “And now you can hear it from me. This is a _serious_ injury, Thomas, just because you’re not unconscious or bleeding everywhere doesn’t mean you’re not going to be healing a while.”

Thomas looked wry. “I think being unconscious would be preferable, about now.”

He took his upbraiding quietly – well, Thomas had never lacked for patience, that was certain – and Abdul was just about finished anyhow when Molly showed up with a thermos and some brown-paper-wrapped items that were presumably food, evidently a pre-emptive strike against hospital cuisine. It still surprised Abdul every time he laid eyes on her outside of the Folly’s doors – she had remained behind them for so many years – but Thomas looked pleased to see her. She drifted around the room, examining it critically, and then spent several minutes adjusting the pillows and blankets on Thomas’s bed to her satisfaction. Thomas accepted this with the same equanimity as he had Abdul’s opinions on his injury, and thanked her politely.

Close on Molly’s heels was one of the new constables – Sterling, the tiny brown-haired girl who shared a home city with Abdul. As far as Abdul was concerned, adding a Glaswegian to their ranks showed great good sense on Thomas’s part. She wasn’t going to be much bothered by anything the Folly could throw at her.

“Hello, sir,” she said to Thomas. “I hope you’re feeling all right there. The sergeant wanted me to give you an update, seeing as your phone is off. And Molly wanted to bring you lunch.”

“It’s not off, it’s dead,” Thomas told her.

“He said that might be the case, and so here’s your backup,” Sterling replied promptly, pulling a mobile out of her coat pocket.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to use them in hospital wards.” Thomas shot a look at Abdul, who shook his head.

“Ach, no, we’ve been letting them in for years now. And there’d be nothing here they’d damage, it’s not the ICU.” Thomas, he knew, regarded mobile phones largely as an invention that allowed other people to bother him, even after all this time. But Abdul thought it was much better Peter and the others could call him, rather than showing up in person every five minutes – phone calls could always be ended or ignored. “Feel free to use it as much as you need.”

The look Thomas gave him was distinctly unimpressed, if you knew Thomas, while Molly hid her smile with her hand. Sterling just gave a sunny beam. “Well, that’s wonderful, then! Can I grab you anything else, sir? Grant said he’d come by later with some of your things.”

“No, thank you, Annie,” Thomas said. “Is Peter done with the interviews, then?”

“He was still at Belgravia last I heard,” Sterling said. “He’s got Mal with him. But the site’s all taken care of – Matt and Abigail are keeping an eye on it until we can, what was it Grant said? Degauss it.”

From the face Thomas made, this was not approved magical terminology. But it sounded _just_ like Peter. “Very good. Don’t feel obliged to stick around, I’m quite used to hospitals.”

“Are you ready, then, Molly?” Sterling asked, and at Molly’s nod, said farewell to Thomas and Abdul and left, Molly gliding behind her. How she glided in jeans, Abdul didn’t know. Maybe that was magic, too.  

Thomas said he might try napping for a while – the drugs kicking in, Abdul thought – so Abdul left him to it. He had a lot more than one idiot wizard to worry about, anyway.

*

When he came back that evening, Peter was already in the room. Apparently whatever telling-off he’d delivered to Thomas at the time of the injury had been insufficient. Abdul hadn’t asked exactly _how_ Thomas had broken his leg, he realised.

“I mean, honestly,” Peter was saying, “everyone likes to yell at _me_ about doing stupid things but really.”

Thomas sighed. “It wasn’t that dangerous, and the entire _point_ of training other wizards in the first place was that anything that happens to me will now no longer deprive the Met of our particular expertise –”

“Which doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to run off and get yourself killed. Or banged up like this.”

“Your point is _taken_ , Peter,” Thomas said testily, and Abdul realised he was nearly guilty of eavesdropping – which was a common sin of the medical profession but would be ever so embarrassing if he were actually caught at it. So he went inside the room.

“Peter,” he said by way of greeting. “And Thomas – how are we feeling?”

“Bedridden,” Thomas said. The nap did not appear to have improved his temper. “ _How_ long was it you said I’d be in here?”

“I might be inclined to let you out tomorrow, _if_ it looks like it’s setting correctly. And I get assurance you’re going to have the help you need back at the Folly.” Abdul looked to Peter as he said this, and Peter nodded immediately; he was a good lad, and reliable. And Molly would watch Thomas like a hawk, he knew.

“Could be worse,” Peter told Thomas, patting his uninjured leg through the blankets; Abdul hadn’t really paid attention, but Peter was perched on the bed, practically sitting next to Thomas, quite unselfconscious. “It could have landed on your _head_ instead. Do you have any idea how much paperwork I’d be doing?”

“I’m honoured to know your greatest concern about my possible death is the length of the paperwork afterwards,” Thomas said dryly. Peter scowled at him.

“Exactly how did this happen, again?” Abdul asked. He hadn’t done the setting or x-rays – not his specialty – and hadn’t gotten the details from the resident who had.

“Haunted building site,” Thomas said. “Or – _haunted_ is inexact, but – magic had been imbued into certain of the items there, it's a long story. We ascertained the cause and sealed it off, but then –”

“But then you weren’t satisfied with police tape and went into that corner to ward it and had half a wall _fall on you_ ,” Peter continued. His hand was still on Thomas’s leg, Abdul couldn’t help but note. _That_ was…odd. Then again, he did seem genuinely concerned.

“It was not half a wall,” retorted Thomas.

“That’s not what Choudhury said when she called me.” Peter looked strained, and Abdul thought he must have been very worried. “Anyway, I know, I know, it was an accident.”

Well, that was better than a duel with an evil magician or one of those demon traps or whatever other horrors magic could dredge up. Abdul was surprised sometimes Thomas had survived long enough to train an apprentice, the question of his age aside. “And no use worrying about it now. I just wanted to say I was off for the day.”

“Thank you for dropping by, Abdul,” Thomas said, with the upturn of his lips that passed for a smile in the usual course of things. “I promise to be a good patient.”

“Hmph,” Abdul said, “the best patients are the ones who _aren’t here_ ,” but that would do.

Because he wasn’t above some things, and curiosity always had been his abetting flaw – else he’d never have got wound up with Thomas and his strange world - he paused for a few seconds outside the room.

“Brought you a change of clothes,” Peter was telling Thomas. “In case you do get out tomorrow. And your book, from the nightstand. If there’s anything else I can run back and get it.”

“Really, Peter, I’m only going to be in here a night, if Abdul means it,” Thomas said. “You worry overmuch.”

“That, _Thomas_ , is because I preferred it when _you_ were all worried about staying alive long enough to teach me everything I needed to know,” Peter shot back briskly, but not unhappily, sort of…affectionately. And since when were they on first-name terms?

Then there was a soft silence, and it all added up to a picture that Abdul couldn’t really believe. He knew Thomas preferred men, but it didn’t seem at all likely that Peter – well, it just didn’t seem…surely he’d have noticed, if that was going on between them? Unless it was very new, but he’d not noticed any change in their behaviour of late, and even now there was no one thing he could point to and say, that was definitely different. If it was a transition, it had been a seamless one.

Then Peter and Thomas could be heard talking again, about the details of the day’s case, and Abdul realised he _was_ eavesdropping and took himself away from temptation, and towards his car, which was where he’d been going to begin with.

No, it was just the worry of Thomas landing himself in hospital, he decided as he walked. Peter and Thomas were closer than most colleagues – how could they not be, when they’d worked together so long, and lived together as well, besides the insular nature of their job – but anything more was his own fancy. Although it would be good for Thomas, he couldn’t help thinking, who had been so isolated so long –

Well, it was still not likely, but he’d watch and see. Maybe there _was_ something there, after all. Maybe the pair of them didn’t know it yet themselves. It would be interesting to find out.

 

**+1. Molly**

The Nightingale was master of the Folly, but it was Molly’s house, and had been for longer than it had not, at this point in her life. She remembered it before Ettersberg, before they all left, when she was just one of the girls belowstairs – but for most of her life, now, the Folly had been hers and hers alone to keep.

They had settled into a rhythm, the Nightingale and she, once the few others who’d returned from the war had died or drifted away. Molly kept the house, and made his meals, and he came and went on his cases, but mostly he stayed, a part of the house as much as her. They were both ghosts, in a way, of a world that had gone. But unlike ghosts, they knew and they remembered. And the Nightingale, at least, could leave the Folly, go out into the world. Molly – could not. Not then.

Peter Grant’s arrival had interrupted their rhythm, and she had not liked it, at first, had not trusted the new boy. But he had been polite, and kind, though ever so afraid of her – which made her sad and amused and angry, in turns – but the fear had receded, with time. And he jumped so prettily when she snuck up on him, or woke him by standing in his bedroom door. Perhaps it was not kind of her, but she had learned those little amusements long ago, when the Folly had been full of boys who feared her and were not kind. It was hard to give them up.

Peter had brought her a friend, too, the little dog who didn’t care how sharp her teeth were, or how it sounded when she laughed – for weren’t his little teeth sharp too? He just wanted her to feed him and pet him, and he did as she asked. Perhaps she should have found a pet long ago. There had been no pets in the Folly, before – animals, yes, but not pets. She had not known to ask the Nightingale for one. When Toby died, she grieved, but Peter came to her kitchen a month later with a wriggly little puppy, and didn’t even flinch when she smiled and laughed. That was when she decided that even if the Nightingale ever died, she might stay in the Folly, for Peter’s sake.

But it wouldn’t just be Peter, because still later, more of them came along – more apprentices, now Peter was finished his training. Abigail at first, who had been visiting for afternoon tea on Sundays for several years. Abigail had not known what to make of Molly, all awkwardness and sideways looks; not for Molly’s face, she thought, but for the idea of someone serving her. Before the war, Molly thought, the only way Abigail would have entered the Folly was through the servants’ door, into the kitchen, the same way Molly had come. Now she was entering through the front, as a guest and now a sworn apprentice. Molly found she liked that.

And others followed soon after, Annabelle and Malini and Matthew. Molly had not realised, until they were all settled in on the students’ floor, how she had missed having other women in the Folly. When she was a girl, her world had been almost all women, belowstairs. They had not all been her friends, indeed most of them had not been, but they had been friendlier by far than the wizards of the Folly. Except for the Nightingale, but he had always been an exception, a thing unto himself. For a while there had been Lesley, who had spoken with her, seemed to take some comfort in Molly’s silences, sat with her when she wished to hide from Peter or the Nightingale; but Lesley had gone almost as quickly as she had come, and left nothing behind. These new girls were like Lesley and not; apprentices both of them, eager and determined, but Annabelle was sunnier, Malini more impulsive. They both looked askance at her when they first entered the Folly, but took their lead from Abigail, and were soon enough unafraid to enter her kitchen, to give her a compliment or ask her a question, to play with the dog, even to offer her help. Keeping the house was Molly’s job, not theirs, and it was not as if managing for six was so much harder than two, but it was a kind thought. No-one else had ever offered that.   

Other thing changed when the apprentices came, apart from the Folly being fuller, of noise and people and magic. Peter and the Nightingale were set apart by having apprentices to teach, and drawn closer to each other. Molly knew, of course, that this was a thing not permitted. It was not as it had been when she was a girl, when the wizards who preferred each other’s company to that of women were silent for the shame of it, and gossiped of in the servants’ quarters, but the Nightingale was still master of the Folly and Peter below him.

It made no difference to her, though, and she saw how it lightened their step. They did not bother to try and hide it from her, not that they could have if they’d tried. Molly was everywhere in the Folly, moving with silent step. She met them, late at night or early in the morning, entering or leaving the other’s room. The first time, the Nightingale had merely nodded to her, as he might upon seeing her at any time of the day, despite his dressing gown. Peter had jumped, blushed as red as he could, and looked sideways at her all the next day, but he had learned that she had no interest in telling his secrets. Or anyone’s. She had chanced upon them after that a time or two beyond their rooms, curled on the sofa in the coach house, exchanging a quiet kiss in the back entranceway, and once, memorably and _most_ improperly, in the library. She had retreated before they had seen her – not that either of them had been paying any attention, and well for them she had been the only other person in the Folly at the time – and meted out her disapproval in cookery and cold tea. They had both taken the message for what it was, and been slow to meet her eyes for a week after. The Nightingale had been too embarrassed to speak of it, but Peter had even offered an apology. She had relented after that, and it hadn’t happened again. But she tried to walk a little less quietly, when she knew they were in a room alone. To save her eyes, if nothing else.

She did not know what the apprentices thought, and fancied they had no idea; they speculated in curious voices once or twice, when they thought themselves unheard, but Abigail scorned the idea, and they deferred to her as the one who had known Peter and the Nightingale the longest. One day they would realise, Molly thought, but perhaps not for some time. Like all young people, their interests were in their own lives and loves, not those of their elders. So funny, to think of Peter as anyone’s elder, but the years turned on and people changed, whether she did or not.

Doctor Walid had asked her once, when he was visiting. He had been in the entrance hall, putting on his coat before venturing out. There had been tea and biscuits, with Peter and Nightingale, the apprentices being elsewhere or uninterested. She had come to return his scarf, which he had left in the atrium.

“Oh, thank you, Molly,” he said as she handed it to him. “I’d forgotten I brought it.” He glanced speculatively back; Peter and the Nightingale had been happy today to see their friend, and because the apprentices were learning, it was almost summer, and the world was well, or at least as well as it ever was. They had smiled at Doctor Walid and each other, and nothing had been hidden, if you knew them and could see. “I’ve been meaning to ask, Molly, lass – do you ever wonder about those two?”

She arched an eyebrow at him, to ask what he meant by that, and he fixed her with a dry look. “You know perfectly well what I mean – is it my sight misleading me, or are they…happier together? I think it might be a good thing, you understand.”

Molly shrugged, to indicate it was none of her concern, but Walid had been visiting the Folly for many years now – his hair was going white, as the Nightingale’s once had before coming in brown again – and there must have been something in her face he recognised. He nodded.

“Ah, well, I thought as much. Perhaps I’ll even hear it from them one of these days.”

And perhaps he would, Molly thought – he was, after all, their friend. Perhaps he would.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're wondering "but when _did_ they get together during this one?" - it could have been sometime between Beverley and Abigail’s POVs (Good Grammar), sometime between Abigail and Guleed’s (Traditional Decorations), or sometime between Guleed and Walid’s (The Requirements of a First Date). The only thing I’m sure of is that it was definitely post-Beverley’s POV. (And, yes, I know it makes no sense for the apprentices to be learning _lux_ in the post-Christmas story and practicing _impello_ in the pre-Christmas story. Shhhhhhhh. _Different timelines_.)


End file.
